Dogs surrounding volunteers at home with drapery (8)
I believe the answer is:
curtains
'home with drapery' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'dogs surrounding volunteers at' is the wordplay.
'dogs' becomes 'curs' (cur can mean a violent dog).
'surrounding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'volunteers' becomes 'TA' (abbreviation for Territorial Army).
'at' becomes 'in' (synonymous in some cases - eg at school, in school).
'ta'+'in'='tain'
'curs' going around 'tain' is 'CURTAINS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for curtains that I've seen before include "Hanging cloths" , "Window drapes in slangy ending" , "I run cats up the drapes" , "Death (slang)" , "Draperies" .)